The latest bugaboo troubling local Tea Party groups is Seven50, a long-range (50-year) plan for sustainable development in the seven South Florida counties from Indian River through the Keys. Though the planners of Seven50 have no enforcement power whatsoever, the Tea Party sees the hidden hand of a "tyrannical" federal government at work, acting on behalf of a U.N. scheme, no less, to rob them of property and "liberty."

The planners are alleged to use a form of mind control, "the Delphi technique," to brainwash the public. A flash point of Tea Party concern are remarks made by Seven50 consultant Andres Duany, a world-renowned, Miami-based architect/urban planner. Some environmentalists on the political left are also Seven50 skeptics. But the big noise and paranoia comes from the political right.

Still under development, Seven50 is the creation of the Southeast Florida Regional Partnership, a collaboration of counties, cities, and civic and business groups that originated in 2010 with $4.2 million in funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. It describes itself as:

a blueprint for growing a more prosperous, more desirable Southeast Florida during the next 50 years and beyond... to help ensure socially inclusive communities, a vibrant and resilient economy, and stewardship of the fragile ecosystem in what is quickly becoming one of the world's most important mega-regions.

Since June 2012, Seven50's planners have met with the public in a series of "summits" and workgroups. Meetings of its executive committee have also been open to the public. The planners make heavy use of social media.

The group's claims have the support of Vero Beach Mayor Craig Fletcher, who at a May 21 City Council meeting denounced Seven50 as "a bunch of radicals" and planner Duany as "a clown." (Here's video of his version of what he heard at a May 17 Seven50 meeting.) Indian River County Commissioner Bob Solari has voiced similar complaints. The City of Vero Beach, Indian River County, the Town of Indian River Shores, and the Indian River School Board have opted out of the Seven50 process.

Duany's May 17th remarks have become a Tea Party talking point. Brilliant and imperious, the planner expressed his frustration with tax burdens and regulatory red tape (which conservatives should love) but spoke incautiously, using the phrase "ruthless capitalism" and referring to the supposed efficiencies of fascism. Of Seven50, he said, at one point, "You should just trust us and pass it."

We reached out to Duany for comment on the Tea Party rebellion. In an email he replied:

As it happens, after a few months (in a a somewhat hostile listserv) of making the case FOR the standing of the Tea Party, I had some recent experiences that forced me to better understand the challenges.
I found that about 10% of them are extremely thoughtful and well informed; they are essentially correct in their concerns. Then at least 50 percent are active because they have undergone some awful personal experiences with red tape. They will respond to any prospect of reducing bureaucracy*. And there are the rest who, I was shocked and disappointed to find out, are simply inaccessible to reason and act like maniacs.
Incidentally, the Left seems to have similar ratios in its makeup.
Fortunately, I think that I can probably engage with that 10-60 percent that is open to reason.

Seven50's critics on the left include the Sierra Club's Drew Martin, who has diligently attended planning group meetings. His take is diametrically opposed to the Tea Party's, arguing that planners are "driving the process to the right." "The flavor of the discussions is very developer-driven," he told New Times, "and not so much on environmental concerns."

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Fire Ant-- It is clear you were uneducated on this topic before you started flapping your words all over that keyboard. Not to mention your biased inclusion of b.s. mumbo jumbo from Duany. Did you even "watch" the whole video?? Why wouldn't you contact the others for a more personal response?

It really doesn't matter, you are obviously apathetic to what happens regardless. The dreamy and uneducated usually are; your their perfect parasite.

If my head is in the sand with the others, it is because we are digging our way back to freedom and remember stay the hell away from my ass, guns, and family. Also, if you think your clips off You Tube will educate you enough to continue writing political articles you'll be a burnt little ant before you can finish cutting and pasting the next one.

Maybe you should get YOUR ass out from behind that computer and go see what your talking about before you write about it.

Has fire.ant ever attended a Seven50 meeting? At these meetings questions are asked about development and land planning. The catch is you can't answer freely. You must choose a multiple choice answer that has been provided by the Seven50 folks themselves. This steers attendees answers in the direction that is in favor of Seven50.

Andres Duany also said fascism is efficient and went on to say the problem with South Florida is it's much more democratic than Orlando which is a "big corporate, quasi fascist operation". Hear him say it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qvZCFdxNU8

Fire.ant said the people in Indian River County are propagating the U.N. Agenda 21 charge, calling it a conspiracy. Why is it Miami's new development code is called Miami21? Just a coincidence? Go to http://Miami21.org to see for yourselves.

Miami-Dade, Broward, and a lot of Palm Beach County are almost completely built out, unlike Martin, Saint Lucie, and Indian River Counties. That's funny because the people pushing Seven50 are almost all from the southernmost counties.

A long range plan for a Tea Party member consists of determining where to source the cardboard for your last brain fart which you mistakenly confused for a temporary moment of wit and wisdom, yet unwittingly execute with poor spelling and proudly display on a street corner.

@Liberty13 Because the article was intensively researched, everyone's "mumbo-jumbo" was included. Because Duany was personally attacked, I made sure he had a chance to reply. He did. Because Commissioner Solari made such extreme claims, I offered him the chance, as was made clear in the article, to explain himself. He chose not to.

@fire.ant @Carlos So you have watched some videos? Big deal. I was at a workshop and people had little chance to speak out. But the papers they had people fill out were multiple choice. You couldn't write your own answer. In the video you posted there was about 15 minutes for public comment out of two hours!

I don't care what you "southerners" think you have learned. The counties to the north should decide their own destinies. The plenty of support up north you speak of is from the land planners themselves. These people do not reflect the opinions of most of the public. Indian River County is out of Seven50 and I predict the other counties up north will be out as soon as the general public is informed. Most people haven't even heard of Seven50, but when they do it will be defeated.

@fire.ant“the concept of “rights” only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard.

In the first place, there are two senses in which property rights are identical with human rights: one, that property can onlyaccrue to humans, so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings; and two, that the person’s right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a property right in his own person as well as a “human right.” But more importantly for our discussion, human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals to weaken those rights on behalf of “public policy” or the “public good.” As I wrote in another work:

Take, for example, the “human right” of free speech. Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate “right to free speech”; there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.[2]

In short, a person does not have a “right to freedom of speech”; what he does have is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premises. He does not have a “right to freedom of the press”; what he does have is the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are willing to accept it). Thus, what he has in each of these cases is property rights, including the right of free contract and transfer which form a part of such rights of ownership. There is no extra “right of free speech” or free press beyond the property rights that a person may have in any given case.”

@Carlos Yes, indeed, the article is about the Tea Party's ideas. When a significant portion of the citizenry buys into paranoid conspiracy thought, enough to move public officials to action, that's news.

@fire.ant @Carlos Your article mentions the Tea Party 13 times not counting the headline! The only other opposition mentioned is the American Coalition 4 Property Rights which you say is a "conspiracy-minded group". And since this isn't a jab at the Tea Party, Sierra Club's Drew Martin gets a mention as the lone guy on the left that opposes it. Ridiculous!

@fire.ant@Carlos It's more than you've done fire.ant. Clearly you really don't know what you are talking about. Unfortunately this article, like many of the New Times articles, is a jab at the "Tea Party". I am not part of the Tea Party and you trying to group all opposition to Seven50 as the Tea Party is ignorance on your part.

@Carlos You were at "a workshop." Big deal. The public has plenty of opportunity to address Seven50. And the planners have no enforcement power. And there isn't any plan at all in place yet, so the general public has nothing yet to defeat, or accept. Chill out.